The invention relates to manual implements to transplant young plants, and more specifically, the invention concerns manual implements to extract and to plant coniferous seedlings.
The reforestation of a land after logging is usually done by transplanting seedlings. There are several methods to start seedlings under controlled climatic conditions; One method is to germinate the seeds into individual pots which are thereafter transplanted into bedding fields. The seeds are sometimes started directly into bedding soil.
In many tree nurseries, the mature seedlings are extracted from the bedding area by workers using a small hand shovels. Individual trees and their root systems are carved out the soil and placed in boxes for transporting to the planting site.
Workers generally work in the kneeled down position, and great care is needed to manipulate the trees into the boxes.
Another common practice to extract seedlings from a bedding patch is to use a tubular tool which is placed over the plant, and pushed into the soil using both hands, and sometimes using both hands and a foot. A plug of soil containing the plant's root system is then pulled out of the soil. It is then manipulated out a tube which folds open, or pushed out of it mechanically.
The growing of plants in greenhouses and bedding fields is somewhat costly. Capital investment in buildings, land and equipment is substantial. The simulation of ideal forest environment using shaded covers, spraying trollies, and advanced fertilizers add to the expenses of maintaining a reforestation program.
Seedlings can be obtained at no costs in their natural states, in wooded areas next to the harvested lot. Well managed wooded lands are usually harvested in strips. One strip is clear cut and the strip adjacent to it remains untouched until the new transplants are high enough to take over in the preserving of the natural habitat for the basic vegetation, for birds and for game animals. Standing strips are also scarified regularly in order to assure maximum yield of the larger trees. These wooded strips contain quality seedlings in abundance which, if left there, will never become full grown trees anyway.
Another source of extraction for inexpensive seedlings is from undesirable growing sites such as borders of roads, fields and clearings.
The extraction of seedlings along roadsides and from wooded areas requires a tool which is light, which is not cumbersome, and which is efficient. Walking distances and obstructions between trees are enough burdens that workers don't want to waste time with laborious devices.
Most implements on the market are mechanically complex: the extraction processes consist of sequences of operations involving pedals and levers. It is also a common fact that extracting devices have handles or linkages which obstruct the line of sight of the tree at the center of the tubular digging part,
Other tools have a conical tube, flared at the top, to facilitate the removal of the soil plug from the upper opening of the tube. The same tool is generally used to dig a hole to receive the seedling. If the new hole is not exactly at the same depth or deeper than the soil plug of the seedling, the upper roots of the new plant will remain exposed to air contact and therefore will dry and cause the plant to die. It is a common fact with these tools to observe a low survival rate of the plants, and especially in coarse soil where the appropriate digging depth is not always obtained at the first attempt.
Another common fact with tubular tools having foot bars, is that these bars form a straight angle with the digging tube. Therefore, the foot of the operator tends to slip sideways, and the knee tends to bow out of alignment. The torque produced therefrom on the tool requires much thrust on the handle to maintain alignment of the digging tube. The motion and force combined are pushing the operator out of balance at every drive of the tool.